Hikvision, Y-Cam, AirLive and RTSP in Live Cams Pro 4.0.3

Hikvision Profile 1 in 4.0.3

This profile was enhanced to allow for both HTTP and RTSP ports. This gives us the ability to receive audio/video over the RTSP port and also to perform PTZ or on-camera settings requests via the HTTP port. We also require the HTTP port to fetch JPEG images for the thumbnails. You will need to edit the camera settings in the app and assign proper values to both ports. If you are accessing the camera through your router and not just local wifi then you will also need to port forward both values on the router.

Version 4.0.3 was also modified to pull JPEG images using HTTP requests for the thumbnails. If you do not have a valid HTTP port populated then you will see “Unavailable” in the thumbnail area. In 4.0.4 we return to showing RTSP streams for thumbnails, although this will consume lots of battery and CPU.

RTSP for Y-Cam and AirLive (and others)

We’ve had some confusion with the latest update to Live Cams Pro (version 4.0.3). In older releases we often used the RTSP protocol to fetch and display audio/video. Typically this was for camera profiles that use MPEG4 or H.264 video. Some of these profiles were hardcoded to fetch video using what is called “RTSP over HTTP”. Due to internal design, the app was unable to allow flexible options for the RTSP settings.

In 4.0.3 we improved this so that you can select a separate RTSP port in the add/edit camera screen. In addition you can also change the RTSP protocol to TCP, UDP, or HTTP.

Unfortunately, this caused some of our customers grief because what was working for them prior to 4.0.3 was failing when they updated to 4.0.3

The simple solution is to edit the camera settings, enter the proper RTSP port for your camera, and use the TCP protocol. You may need to configure port forwarding on your router for the RTSP port just like you do for the HTTP port.

A second solution is to simply enter the same HTTP port value into the RTSP port field, then set the RTSP protocol to HTTP. This is what the app used to do automatically.

For example:

Your camera uses HTTP port 8080, and you see port 554 in the RTSP port field. Change the RTSP port to 8080, then set the RTSP protocol to HTTP. Save the camera. It should once again work like 4.0.2 and earlier releases.